PS 2359 
.1114 S6 
1901 
Copy 1 



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NETS TO A WIFE 




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Class JA_4$J^_ 
Book M H 54 
GoipghtN iMJU 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



SONNETS TO A WIFE 

/ 
<By ERNEST SMcGAFFEY 




SAINT LOUIS 
WILLIAM 3WARI0N IfEEDY 
MCMI 



THE LIBRARY OF 


CONGRESS, 


Two Coeie.3 Received 


JUN. 10 1901 


Copyright entry 


CLASS 6L>XXg. N*. 


f/2-y 


COPY B. 



■ 



~f$SlBS 



Copyrighted 190 1 
By ERNEST McGAFFEY 



« < 



•-• • -• 



FOR CECILE 



FOREWORD 




FOREWORD 

TRUE poetry needs not to be explained. It 
goes direct from poet's to reader's heart. 
The seventy sonnets in this little book have this 
quality of clearness and directness. They are easily 
understanded of the people and yet they have a 
charm as well even for the literary gourmet. They 
are always simple. They are always sweet, and 
yet we cannot say that they are too much sugar' d. 
Our poet surely does not "tear a passion to 
tatters" in his song, and while we may acknowledge 
that the sonnet form is one that forbids abandon- 
ment to fine frenzies, being in its nature repressive 
of exuberances, it must be clear to any reader of 
this sequence that its underlying note is that of a 
passion of exalted reserve. The love they express 
is of that reticently strong sort which characterizes 
the Anglo-Saxon. The passion is strong and deep : 
it is never spectacular: it is not fantastic, whim- 
sical. This poet aims not to make an effect solely^, 
to turn the raptures and sorrows, the hopes and 
fears, the wistfulness of his spirit into startling 
copy. He writes as one fulfilled of reverence be- 



FOREWORD 

fore the great boon and mystery of a woman's 
love. The impression he gives us is of the sanctity 
of a relationship in which, nevertheless, there is 
full recognition of the element other than spiritual 
which must go to the making of a perfect mar- 
riage. Here are blended the charm of Phyllis, 
Phryne and Penelope, the grosser passion, of which 
so much modern writing is obsessed, being, how- 
ever, left in the obscurity to which modern reserve 
has relegated it as something taken for granted, 
beautiful in its essence, but soiled and spoiled by 
being made familiar to the many. 

Mr. McGafiEey makes his sonnets a continuous 
hymn of the beautiful in Nature, and of that beauty, 
with its subtle, pervading sense of pathetic im- 
permanence, as interpreting and interpreted by 
the sane and sacred love between a man and a 
woman. The clean atmosphere of the open world 
is in every sonnet. All the airs of heaven blow 
pureness about these lovers. We have no trace 
of contemporary materialistic views of love, no in- 
sistence upon the fascination of a rampant, sav- 
age, physically clamorous muliebrity. The spiritual 
significance of the great Nature, of which husband 
and wife and their love for one another are a 
part, is always strongly suggested and this with- 

viii 






FOREWORD 

out cant either of orthodoxy or of the dolorous 
minor poet always lamenting the inevitable, immit- 
igable loss of himself to the world. There is no 
negation here. Every line repudiates "the spirit 
which denies." The joy of living, the pleasure of 
remembrance, the hope that faces the future, 
the confidence— not too confident, however — that 
"there is a budding morrow in midnight" — all these 
things are proclaimed with an exultancy that is 
unfailingly serene. Emotion and intellect are 
finely harmonized. There are in these sonnets no 
signs of mere playing with the former or undue 
pride in the exhibition of the latter as mere clever- 
ness. The poet is sincere with himself, and yet 
the strain of happiness is so frankly insistent that 
he cannot truly be called, in the ordinary sense of 
the term, serious. He is deliciously un-didactic. 
A characteristic of this tribute to woman, 
under the form of a glorification of the one 
woman, which will not be lost to the fine senses 
of those who, while appreciating the banality 
and absurdity of recent superlative manifesta- 
tions of feminism, nevertheless realize the enor- 
mity of the crime which civilization has com- 
mitted against "the sex" in regarding it as wholly 
secondary to the masculine element, is the fact that, 

ix 



FOREWORD 

throughout this work, the wife is always treated as 
the companion of the husband. Rather let us say, 
in the good, warm sense, this poet's wife is his 
"chum." She is a woman who sees and hears and 
feels the gladness of earth and air and sky. She 
is a woman of the open air. She knows the trees, 
the birds, the signs of the changing seasons. No 
Eighteenth Century shepherdess she, but a modern 
American woman, enjoying such freedom as only 
the American woman knows. She is the central 
figure in an eminently healthful picture of life, and 
it is this fullness of health which keeps the sonnets 
clear of all morbidness. True, we have hints, now 
and again, of the immanence of death — that shadow 
upon all the joy of the world which, somehow, 
seems nevertheless to give to joy its uttermost 
poignancy — but the fact is accepted. The poet nor 
whimpers nor whines. He faces his fate. He has 
his love, and all this world which that love glorifies, 
and love is, in its highest form, both hope and faith. 
As to the technique of these sonnets, it were 
idle to maintain that it is faultless. Mr. McGaffey 
almost prides himself upon his assertion of a large 
ignorance of grammar and rhetoric. It is, there- 
fore, well to say that, considering such self-con- 
fessed limitation, and considering also, that the 



FOREWORD 

sonnet is "a difficult and cloying form of verse," 
and that the form is necessarily a rigid restriction 
upon thought and feeling, this performance is 
almost miraculously artistic. There are few literary 
allusions, because the substance of the work comes 
straight from the heart and from Nature, and not 
from books. They are felt, not echoed from other 
poets. Defective sonnets there are in this sequence, 
but the very defects, generally speaking, give 
the work a warmth, a color, a spontaneity which 
might have been utterly lost through too much 
concern with the abstrusities of syntax and prosody. 
It is easier to criticize these sonnets than to write 
sonnets that will compare with them. The poet is 
greater than the form to which he submits himself. 
His lyricism asserts itself triumphantly always, 
and often in so doing it bursts the bonds of the 
form that is too compressed for it. 

Here, then, are these "Sonnets To a Wife." 
They are sweet and clean and strong. They are 
the glorification of womanliness as, taken all in all, 
the finest thing in this, the only world we know. 
They honor goodness. They breathe tenderness 
and courage and a pantheistic piety. They are the 
happy mean between the ascetic and the sensual 
apprehension of life. They are the utterance of a 

xi 



r 



FOREWORD 

sane passion for a good woman by a poet who is 
also a good man. They may not appeal to the taste 
that invariably prefers "Madame Bovary" to "The 
Vicar of Wakefield," but they will touch tenderly, 
and not the less surely, the hearts of all those who 
feel and know that true love is something more than 
a blind, bodily instinct or desire that we have in 
common with the beasts that perish. 

William Marion Reedy. 
St. Louis, May 9 th, J 901. 







SONNETS TO <A WIFE 




SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



LIFE AT ITS BEST 

Life at its best is but a troubled sea; 

The ship is launched with snowy-spreading sail 

To face the reefs, the billows and the gale, 
And meet the perils that are yet to be. 
The shore she left fades dimly in the lee 

And on the beach the forms and faces fail; 

Come what come may, or rain or sun or hail 
The ship glides on, the mariner is free. 

But Ah! what joy when backward o'er the foam 
From stress of storms and far, unfriendly lands, 

Held in the hollow of the sky's vast dome, 
To mark at last the well-remembered sands ; 

To know once more the harbor of a home 
And welcome of a woman's outstretched hands, 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



THE WOOING 

Not with the thoughts of others do I seek 
To wake your interest and hold it fast ; 
Not with a fancy from the buried past, 

Some honeyed fragment of the ancient Greek, 

Have I essayed in halting form to speak ; 
But I have all such cunning outward cast 
And trusted to the Saxon words at last 

To light your eyes — put color in your cheek. 

The simplest speech is truest ; when I say 
"I love you /" in those three words I have said 

All that I know, or compass, or can feel. 

Let those who will, adopt the tortuous way 

The while their thought in speech obscure is led 

Round, round and round, a wheel within a wheeL 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



IN THE FIELDS 

When on the hills the golden sunlight lies, 
And apple-trees are heavy with the snow 
Of drifted bloom that shades the grass below. 

While far above are realms of cloudless skies ; 

When overhead the wandering swallow flies. 
And butterflies in loops of color go; 
Then, as we wait together, do I know 

Some touch, some hint, some gleam of Paradise, 

The sweet song-sparrow from the poplar sings, 
The swaying leaves put forth their emerald shields, 

Each trembling blossom where the barred bee clings 
Its store of sweets through drowsy hours yields ; 

What sense of life, what joy that almost stings, 
With you and I, there, loitering in the fields. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



JEALOUSY 

If to be jealous is to hope to gain 

Your every longing — make all other men 

As misty to your memory as when 
The shadows slip across a window-pane ; 
If to be jealous is to wish to reign 

Your one true lover, chide me once again. 

Call me as jealous as Othello then 
And all your chiding will be given in vain, 

For I am one who cannot hide my thought 

And curb my tongue and make my cheek a liar; 

The tissue of my nature was not wrought 
Of lifeless clay, devoid of Pagan fire, 

And long in storm and anguish have I sought 

And now have found, at last, my Heart's Desire. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



BOOKS 

Tomes from dull minds I oftentimes have read, 
And disquisitions of the great and wise, 
And sought to learn the secrets of the skies 

On wintry nights with starry scripture spread; 

Through labyrinthian passage have I sped 
Of romance, and of deeds of high emprise, 
But nothing found compared to your dear eyes, 

Nor poems like to what your lips have said. 

To read a woman in the higher sense 
Is quite beyond the power of men's wit; 

Who says he does, is made of vain pretense, 
And never can by wisdom benefit. 

Her look is more than spoken eloquence — 
Her voice the sweetest lyric ever writ. 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



LOVE WITHOUT PASSION 

Love without passion is a flower without sun, 
Reft of the wind's touch , banished from the rain, 
Wrought against nature — therefore, wrought in vain, 

However fine its tissue may be spun ; 

Its petals fade and wither one by one 
And in the dust and under dust are lain. 
Love without passion is the dying strain 

From shattered lutes that all to minors run. 

True love is as the rose ; the roses glow 

With life and color in the summer air, 
The winds of Autumn through the garden blow, 

The leaves are scattered and the vines are bare, 
The snows depart, the grass springs up, and lo ! 

Again the ruddy rose is blooming there. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



ON THE HILLS 

When in the valley where the river ran 
And sunlight rippled on its current fair, 
While shadowed vistas of Autumnal air 

Re-echoed with the dying notes of Pan : 

When twilight's herald came in nighfs dusk van, 
While sank the sun in western splendor there, 
What joy for you and me all this to share 

Mid wooded glades and chords Azolian. 

And in the hush that followed as we saw 
The after-glow dye deep the waiting slopes, 
While brooding silence hushed the sombre rills, 
Then fell upon our hearts a happy awe 
And light and shade of mingled fears and hopes 
Star-signalled on the ramparts of the hills. 



j 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



WORSHIP 

Gods, idols, fetiches of wood and stone, 
Of carven ivory and of beaten brass, 
They rise and fall, they flourish and they pass, 

Or stand disfigured in some desert lone ; 

Creeds come and go, and on the sands are strown, 
And wither like the winter- shaken grass, 
And all such things are shadows on a glass 

To this one love which I for you have known. 

For in my pagan heart I hold you dear, 
More than a miser might his store of gold, 

Or ship-wrecked tar the rescuing sail unfurled. 
In my religion you are worship here 
Beyond all gods or temples manifold, 
The sole and only woman in the world. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



RECOLLECTIONS 

To conjure up old memories ; to say, 
"Do you remember that in such a June, 
An orchard oriole sang us a tune 

Melodiously from out a branching spray 

Of leafy denseness ; or on such a day 
We saw the silver spectre of the moon 
Long after dawn, and nearing unto noon, 

A merest wraith of sickle gaunt and grey?" 

These are love's echoes, faintly heard and fine, 
But ever-present, never dim nor mute, 
That you and I in comradeship do share ; 
Sweet symphonies that breathe a sense divine 
Like misty chords that linger by a lute, 

Though all the silver strings are shattered there. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



WOMEN 

Of such a woman it may well be said 

She has a graceful carriage ; or is fair; 

And of another she has golden hair, 
And praise the poise and beauty of her head; 
Some women may be witty and well read, 

And some may charm by throats and bosoms bare. 

All are Eve's daughters, all her power share 
To conquer man and lead him by a thread. 

But more than seeming grace or outward sign 
Of loveliness that, like a flower, is seen, 
Is what she keeps shrined sacred and apart ; 
Some glow of soul, like sparkle in the wine, 
Some shadowy look, like Autumn pool serene, 
The reflex of the pureness of her heart. 



10 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



IDEALS 

Not rhapsodies for what we cannot reach 
Nor longing for what lies beyond our power, 
But just to make life lovely as a flower 

By gift of tenderness in thought and speech; 

Thus rain and dew their loving lessons teach 
In lace-like gleam, or sudden-dropping shower, 
And so shall we, through every passing hour, 

Hold fast to higher visions, each for each 

Fidelity and courtesy ; and touch 

Of hopefulness to meet the coming years, 

And strength to view the days that backward roll, — 

These will I give you, and in pledging such 
Cast off the shadows of all crowding fears 

And act a man's part truly, heart and souL 



u 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



IN IDLE HOURS 

In idle hours to backward look and see 
77ie tracery of wind across the grass, 
To mark the clouds that float in snowy mass 

With myriad filmy pennants flowing free ; 

To hear a robin in the maple tree, 
And see the pool's reflection like a glass 
WJiere light and shade alternate come and pass, 

With muffled mellow murmurings of the bee : 

This is to drink of nature's brimming cup 
In woodland nooks of slumberous solitude, 

Where summer holds a golden beaker up 
And all the earth by beauty's self is wooed; 

Do you remember where the dead leaf fell, 
The violet's blue, the empty acorn shell ? 



12 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



ALONE 

The hum of many voices rises near 

And from the road comes din of carriage-wheels ; 

Beyond are sails that draw the outbound keels 
Which northward from the shimmering harbor steer ; 
And there are myriads of strange faces here, 

Smooth brows that happy childhood's hour reveals, 

And wrinkled cheeks, where care has stamped his seals, 
And wandering crowds by sea-wall and by pier. 

And we, beneath the cloudless summer sky, 
See all this gathering pass us in a stream, 
Nor note the lights that on the water gleam 

Nor white-winged gulls that seaward dip and fly ; 
We are alone — the rest is but a dream : 

In shadow-land we linger, you and L 



13 



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SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



MUSIC 

A wind- song in the rushes, or a sigh 

From Autumn's chorus in the naked trees, 
The white-stoled chanting of the stately seas 

Against a line of cliffs that tower high — 

A plover's rippling whistle in the sky, 
Or wailing of the flutes in minor keys : 
I, in my time, have harked to all of these, 

And reedy plash of waters lisping by. 

But Oh ! how harsh such chords must ever seem, 
Since in my heart I hear an echo come 
More sweet and low than plaint of mourning-dove, 
The reflex of the note that is my dream, 
That music which makes other music dumb, 
The voice of the one woman whom I love. 



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SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



A WOMAN'S WORLD 

The man she loves ; and all he means to her 
Are what a woman's world is ; in her way 
Of living and of loving day by day, 

Sometimes her dreaming eyes will fill and blur, 

And memories of him will come to stir 

Her heart-strings, as a blossom's self might sway 
When through the scented, flowery paths of May, 

Drift down the echoes of the winds that were. 

The little things are what she treasures most; 

Sweet, subtle courtesies of hand and speech; 

For these the lover's attitude still teach 
Better than costly gift or idle boast; 
As one who reckons, not without his host, 

Holding her near and dear— yet out of reach. 



15 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



BY MOONLIGHT 

In shadow-haunted hush of lonely place, 
With ripples lapping by the reedy shores, 
And glint of stars along the watery floors, 

I see again the profile of your face ; 

The moonlight trailed across your wrist like lace, 
Then disappeared behind its cloudy doors 
While we sat idly, with the idle oars, 

Twixt earth and sky, as balancing in space. 

How strange and beautiful to us it seemed, 
Held in the hollow of the night to float, 
With muffled, liquid whisperings round the boat, 

While overhead the constellations dreamed; 

Some faint-heard rustle from the distant sands, 

And silence brooding o'er our close-locked hands. 



lb 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



COMPANIONSHIP 

The sense of comradeship which now we feel 
Grew slowly, as an oak does, and as strong. 
For now to one another we belong 

In all that makes a man and woman leal ; 

Our lives are linked as firm as welded steel, 
And in our thoughts sweet harmonies do throng 
Like half-remembered echoes of a song, 

As days and nights above our pathway wheel. 

So do the perfume and the joy of days 
Live with us and the season's sway dispute. 

Spring, Summer, Autumn, they may go their ways, 
And bring nor bud nor blossom an it suit ; 

Yet what reck we, beside the wintry fire, 

Sitting alone, I and my Heart's Desire? 



17 



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SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



APART 

Bleak, bitter hours, when separate, we knew, 
Days when the sun sank glowing in the west. 
And quietly the shadows onward pressed 

Until the twilight blotted out the blue. 

The first faint stars came slowly to the view 
And home-bound birds flew silent to their nest, 
While swift as light our thoughts in eager quest 

Pierced outward, yours to me and mine to you. 

Now in the years when we together dream 
Those days apart have lost their sombre look ; 
Mere dog-eared pages of Time' s well-thumbed book 

And not to us belonging do they seem. 
Thus fate at last hath offered full amends, 
And made those lovers who were once but friends. 



18 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



APPLE TREES 

First to our sight their branches brown and bare 
Stood naked in the days of early spring, 
Where haply showed the brilliant azure wing 

Of some conceited jay-bird roaming there; 

And then came May, and all the waiting air 
Was white with dainty blossoms, quivering 

With hordes of bees, thai gathered there to cling 

And all those honeyed sweets to claim and share. 

But best of all was in the days of June, 
When thick and full the canopy of leaves 
Put back the sun with sheltering emerald eaves, 

And housed us from the fervent light of noon ; 

How happily we told there, in the shade, 

Of dreams of one another, unafraid. 



19 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



RESERVE 

Some men proclaim their love, and let it go 
In pitiful wild words that all may see 
How they have sighed, or bended low the knee. 

God's will be done ; I was not fashioned so; 

I know what utter love is, and I know 
What this our life together holds for me, 
But keep it sacred, as not meant to be 

Flung gossip-ward, to the four winds that blow. 

I marvel at those singers who aspire 

To lay their souls bare to the rabble throng; 
For you my lips have trembled into song 
And you shall judge if I lack aught of fire, 

If that my heart-beats have not rung like chimes 
Within the echoing transept of these rhymes. 



20 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



VANITY 



To be as charming in your husband's sight 
As erst you were when he your lover came, 
Go linger by the mirror's polished frame, 

And put all weariness to utter flight; 

Come with a smile and let your eyes be bright. 
Be gay, be sad, but never be the same; 
And thus your lover you may always claim 

Else lost, mayhap, by holding him too light. 

An this be vanity — to add a rose 

To glow upon your bosom, train your hair 
So in his eyes you may be passing fair — 
Why, let it stand; a woman better knows 

That careless hands and sloven taste in dress 
May mar the spell of her own loveliness. 



21 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



IN THE WOODS 

Deep in the glimmering depths of woods to wait 
Where countless leaves with every breeze unfold, 
To watch the sunshine weave its thread of gold 

Where tree trunks stand in tall alignment straight ; 

To hear the flicker challenging his mate 

With chattering note, far-piercing, clear and bold, 
And mark how dimly in the forest old 

The lights and shadows softly palpitate ; 

And there, shut closely from the outer world, 
To lie on some green slope and idly dream, 
Touch hands, and smile, while over us unfurled 

The leafy banners of the noontide gleam — 
That was to find the Ponce de Leon spring 
Of youth, and hope, and blossoms burgeoning. 



22 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



GOLD 

There is a gold unlocked by miser's key, 
And gold is found in lees of sparkling wine, 
And there is gold along the swaying vine 

Where yellow half-blown roses drooping be; 

Gold and to spare among the sands at sea 
And palest gold in saffron stars that shine, 
And gold deep-digged from many a hidden mine 

And golden leaves upon the willow tree. 

But all this aureate glitter is for naught 
When I in dreamful mood my love behold, 
Crowned with her tangled locks of tawny gold 

Like corn-silk in the breeze's meshes caught. 
None other gold may match it, none so fair 
As that which gathers in a woman's hair. 



23 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



TO MY WIFE 

I as an actor, have played well my part, 
Not showing how the sons of men I scorn ; 
Those shriveled, greedy souls who crave the corn 

The oil and wine, the treasures of the mart ; 

Deep in my soul I burn the flame for Art, 
As one who was a lyric poet born, 
As one who leads a singer's hope forlorn 

Yet with unshrinking and unconquered heart. 

I can exist on what a Spartan can ; 

Endure as granite ; smile when friends do fail; 

Face Poverty, and see the years grow stale 
Or bide my time with any sort of man. 

Full in the teeth of Fate I fling the glove — 

Come age f come death, while I have you, my love / 



24 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 




f A WOMAN'S LOVE 



If I have fought my baser self and raised 
My thoughts to high ideals, it is due 
To this the love that I have found in you, 

As I in your dear eyes have longing gazed. 

When I look back I find myself amazed 
At what I was ; what mire I floundered through, 
So far I wandered from the pure and true 

While all my good intentions fitful blazed 

A man is half a savage, and he needs 
The woman's presence to arouse his soul. 

Her love has given the world his noblest deeds ; 
She is the light that warns him from the shoal — 

The reefs — the rocks — where fell destruction leads 
And dark engulfing waters silent roll. 



25 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



MIDSUMMER 

The red-winged black-bird whistled from the reeds, 
The cat-tail stalks rose thickly, straight and tall. 
By meadow-slopes rang sweet a carnival 

Of bobolinks j down-fluttering on the meads ; 

From ribbon-grass and downy road-side weeds 
Fine powdered particles of dust would fall. 
And where the sun shone, through an old stone wall, 

Danced in its light a myriad of seeds. 

Then came a hush in Nature — one that fell 
Like shadows on the leaves, so soft it seemed, 

Or like that pause which follows when a bell 
Peals, and is silent ; and we sat and dreamed, 

While all around the waters wove their spell, 
And far above the cloudless azure gleamed. 



26 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



SISTERHOOD 

All women born are sisters; low or high, 
Goody bad, indifferent, or how you name 

Your silk-beruffled and most haughty dame 

Whose gilded carriage rumbles slowly by, 

Your drunken courtesan with hair awry, 
Barred, marred and scarred by branding irons of 

shame, 
Lo ! in their childhood they were all the same, 

And have no false distinctions when they die. 

Oh ! sisters, to your own sex most unkind, 
How will it fare you when you waste your breath 
And sink like bubbles in the sea of Death, 

If to your sisters you were deaf and blind? 
Remember His forgiveness, which sufficed 
For Magdalen, who washed the feet of Christ! 



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SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



WA TER-LIL1ES 

We rowed the boat among them as they lay, 
Pale lilies, snowy and with hearts of gold, 
That sprang from under depths of oozy mold 
And starred the waters of a Summer day ; 
And I remember after, that in play 

You wound them round your forehead, fold on fold, 
And feigned you were a Naiad, shy and cold, 
Or water-sprite, or mocking woodland fay. 

Yet an you were a Naiad, this I know, 

That you were courted by the amorous sun 
Who kissed your creamy lilies, one by one, 

Till they had drooped beneath the fervent glow ; 
But ere they withered in the twilight there 
They left their gold hearts tangled in your hair. 



28 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



LOVES' PHILOSOPHY 

A rock stands harmless from a little rain, 
But many storms will wear its strength away ; 
And thus in life, when men and women say 

Those bitter words which hasten strife and pain, 

And still repeat, till hope of peace is vain; 
Lo ! as the hour-glass sands divide the day, 
So these small things have parted them for aye 

And Love through such harsh means itself hath slain, 

A venomed adder is the human tongue 
When tipped with anger, be it either sex ; 
And who, when stirred with controversy, recks 

How deep or keen the cruel words have stung? 
Curb then the lips, and emulate the dove, 
Lest wounding one whose life is in your love. 



29 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



TO THE WOMAN 

To lead, not drive him, is the wiser plan, 
For tactfulness will tame him all the years, 
And tenderness, not tyranny, he fears, 

For men were ever but a stubborn clan ; 

And long ago, since first the world began, 
And stars rose dimly in the primal spheres, 
A little wit, diplomacy and tears, — 

What havoc have they wrought with every man I 

So shall you conquer, as the gentle rain, 
Soothing his vanity to gain your ends, 
Moulding his wishes till they meet your own ; 

Thus as a child his confidence you gain, 
For still to flattery his heart unbends, — 
Only a child, a little larger grown. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



TO THE MAN 

If you a woman would desire to hold, 
Faithful and true and guided by your will, 
Be sure no art, nor flattery's fine skill 

Shall e'er deceive her, nor will gifts or gold; 

By love alone her spirit is controlled. 
This is her law, her Deity, until 
The light falls pale upon her forehead still, 

The red lips ashen and the heart grown cold. 

So shall you woo her if you wish to win 
Her heart and soul, to wear her like a flower, 

To drain her kisses and keep back her tears; 

Filling with love the space she lingers in; 
Making her dream of you each passing hour, 

With utter longing through the iron years. 



31 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



MORNING 

The kildee's cry along the sandy shore, 
The pine-tops in the distance, and a still, 
Far sense of brooding on each wooded hill ; 

The fallen trunk of a huge sycamore 

Around whose roots the river' s waters pour, 
And everywhere a subtle, dawning thrill 
That grows and spreads and palpitates until 

The red sun peeps above the eastern door. 

What joy to stand above our vantage ground 
Beneath the shade of overhanging beech ; 

To drink in every chord of sylvan sound, 
Learning the lessons that the woods can teach ; 

Our hearts and souls by sympathy thus bound 
And happy more in thought and less in speech ! 



32 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 






TWO LOVES 

If, loving you, I sometimes seem as sad 

Or dull or tinged with hint of sober mood, 

It is because I feel my life renewed, 
Having your love, and still my treasures add 
As misers do ; and what of woe I've had 

No more with its gaunt shadows may intrude ; 

Thus silence fills the happy interlude 
WJrile I sit wordless, worshiping and glad, 

A boy's love and a man's love intertwined 

I give to you to govern all the time, 

Whether it run to reason or to rhyme ; 
The passion and the purity combined, 

The man's love, strong to fight and work and plan ; 

The boy's to wake the lover in the man. 



33 



, 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



ON A COUNTRY ROAD 

A whitened length of grayish dust that leads 

Past a rough bridge where grape-vines idly trail ; 

From distant woods the whistle of a quail, 
And butterflies that flit above the weeds. 
Horizonward a bluish haze recedes 

A nd flaunts a snowy cloud-shape like a sail ; 

The scent of strawberries along a swale 
Comes pungently to anyone who heeds. 

How slowly and how joyous passed that day ; 

The wayside roses climbing in a throng, 
The far-brought odor of the new-mown hay, 

The cherries dangling as we rode along, 
And cheering us along the homeward way, 

The sweet-wrought flutings of the robin's song! 



34 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



SELFISHNESS 

I want no child to take one jot from me 

Of this, your love ; no helpless, clinging hands 
To hold their place as strong as iron bands. 

Td lock your heart and throw away the key, 

As now you are so I would have you be 

Till from Life's glass should fall the latest sands; 
Till on the hearth the ultimate, dull brands 

Fade out and leave us to Eternity. 

I know the children's power; and I know 

Your soul would flower and blossom to a child; 

And, loving you, I would not have it so, 
Lest I of my sole treasure were beguiled ; 

To learn that bitter lesson, late in life, 

How far a mother loves beyond a wife. 



35 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



ANALYSIS 

To weigh, as in a finely balanced scale, 
Each thought and action that the season brings, 
Is but to fret the spirit with those things 

Which, after all, are of the least avail. 

It is enough to know we shall not fail 
In all the sweet and high imaginings, 
The nobler thoughts which lend to Love his wings, 

Though Time and Fate and even Death assail. 

Analysis is common and may seem, 

Through instances, conclusive as the leaf 

Borne to the A rk by the returning dove ; 
But oftentimes may prove to be a theme 

Which sends the worm of jealousy and grief 
To blight the blossom of a perfect love. 



36 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



TACT 

A woman s crowning glory is her tact, 
The art of knowing when and what to say; 
When to be grave, indifferent or gay, 

And seem so charming in her every act 

That, as a magnet, she will men attract 
And easily compel them to her sway. 
So shall she rule, or golden hair or gray, 

The subtlest type of womanhood in fact 

For tact is more than beauty, more than wit, 
Akin to genius } and the sum of all 

Which makes the woman who is blessed with it 
A Queen by right, in hovel or in hall ; 

Sweet as the honeyed lines by poet writ 
And true as rings the wild-bird 's madrigal. 



37 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



IN IDLENESS 

To lie upon the grass and watch the herds 
Deep standing in the river, and to see 
The barred gold glisten on the bumble-bee 

And note the noisy gossip of the birds; 

To mark the blue horizon-rim that girds 
That purple world beyond, Infinity — 
Under the shade of a wild-cherry tree 

To wait and listen hampered not by words. 

This was our gladness on a long June day, 
Companioned by the lazy lapse of hours, 

While ebbed the slow, enchanted time away, 

Where bird-songs came, like intermittent showers. 

And drowsy sweet upon us where we lay 
The perfume of the elderberry flowers. 



38 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



A BURDEN OF VAIN WISHES 

A burden of vain wishes : hopes that died, 

Vague dreams of fame and wraiths of brave renown 
Pass in the sunlight, motes that vanish down 

Beyond me, standing on this old hill-side 

And disappear in circling vistas wide, 

Like Autumn leaves that scatter, worn and brown 
When Summer lays aside her tattered crown, 

And sombre winds and rusted fields abide. 

A burden of vain wishes ! Nay, not so ! 
Your hand-clasp is my haven and my hope, 
Your love and faith the utmost gross and scope 

Of dreams and fact — this at the last I know, 
Here, waiting while the sunsefs after-glow 

Burns like a torch in valley and on slope. 



39 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



WISDOM 

There is a culture deeper far than books 
And intellect beyond the ken of schools ; 
Wise sayings sometimes on the lips of fools 

And knowledge stored in many quiet nooks. 

A woman is as cultured as she looks, 

Speaks, acts and smiles, and merely bookish rules 
She may well scorn, as being clumsy tools 

With which dull fishers file their rusty hooks. 

This intellect that scholars prattle of 

Why, what does it accomplish ? Every age 

Has witnessed, through the perfidy of Love, 
How woman shows the folly of the sage. 

Nay ! then, Sir Oracle, reserve thy wit, 

Some woman's eyes shall give thee need of it. 



40 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



LOST DAYS 

The tapestry of shadows — ghosts of dreams 

That flickered through the silence and were gone, 
Lost days that we together leaned upon 

Have faded, and the recollection seems 

As dim as sunken starlight in the streams. 
When on a Summer night reflections wan 
From cloudy heights to watery depths are drawn, 

To glimmer in the current's under-gleams. 

Lost days, but cherished ; mirrored in a haze 
Of threadbare seasons, Winter, Autumn, Spring, 

And Summer with her moss-begirdled ways, 
And flash and flutter of a bird's soft wing; 

But who shall pierce the labyrinthian maze 
To tell us where their shades are wandering f ' 



41 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



EVENING 

The tree-toad's call from branches dead and green, 
And from the grass a cricket's rasping cry; 
An afterglow across the Eastern sky 

Red as a far-flung fire-brand's ruddy sheen ; 

The lapping of swift ripples shot between 
Old logs, that rigid in the current lie, 
The shadow of our boat that passes by 

Above brown sands that dimly now are seen. 

This was to float with silence and the night 
Wove through the mesh of twilight like a strand ; 

To note the twisting of the bat's weird flight 
And glint of fire-flies on the shelving sand, 

To be removed from earthly essence quite, 
Two shadows drifting into shadow-land. 



42 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



YOUTH 

Age is not always given with gray hair, 

Nor youth encompassed in the fewest years ; 
Since doubt and pain, with their attendant tears, 

Are dauntless etchers of the lines of care ; 

Youth is most present in the joys we share 
As swift or slow the season disappears, — 
The verve, the gladness which puts by all fears, 

The hopes we nourish and the smiles we wear, 

I think of you always as being young, 

Untouched by Sorrow and unworn by Time, 
Spring's blossoms opening in your tender smile, 
Like her of whom the elder Bards have sung, 
Chanting her praise in many a noble rhyme- 
Like Cleopatra by Egyptian Nile. 



43 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



TAPESTRY 

In the deep twilight when my random thought 
Weaves in the silence and surrounding shade 
Webs of odd fancies, glittering like brocade. 

Or sombre woof of darker musings brought, 

Then have the hours with mystery still fraught, 
Full on the wall a motley texture laid 
Within the loom of darkness spun and made 

In divers hues together firmly wrought. 

And all the warp cf this weird spinning seems 
Forever old and yet forever new; 

With rusted spots and sudden golden gleams 
A subtle blending of the false and true ; 

The dull threads hinting of my wasted dreams, 
The bright ones telling of my love for you. 



44 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



SUMACH 

We climbed the slope above the valley's edge; 

Behind, the country road, a ribbon lay 

Of powdery dust down-winding dim and gray ; 
A bird sang sweetly from a thorny hedge 
And ripples circled in the river sedge, 

While brown October dozed the hours away ; 

And northward, and beyond the hillside clay 
The clustering sumach flamed along a ledge. 

The life of ruddy Autumn filled its veins \ 
Deep-glowing masses glinting in the sun, 

Redder than the wild strawberry, where it stains 
The woodland ways, mid light and shadow spun 

A gorgeous dream, a color-draught divine, 

Spilled on the golden afternoon like wine. 



45 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



LOVE-LETTERS 

Let the light flame consume them and be done 
While their charred fragments in the embers lie, 
The old sweet record of the days gone by. 

Read them and burn them, lingering, one by one ; 

The swift months gather and the seasons run 
With none to tell us of the when or why ; 
Let them, as ashes, vanish in the sky, 

Since this our courtship has but just begun. 

Better to miss them when we parted be 

Than through some fault or lapsing of the years 
To have them made a target for the sneers 

Or jest or scorn of Curiosity ; 
For there are those who tear such things apart 
To feast and mumble on a human heart. 



46 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



SPRING 

The sleet drives sharply on the window-panes 
And naked trees like scaffolds darkly stand; 
The iron grasp of winter on the land 

Locks fields and streams in glittering, icy chains ; 

The north-wind wails in keen, Polaric strains, 
And dead leaves dance a ghostly saraband. 
While cloud-fleets dim, by shapes fantastic manned 

Sail westward where the sunset coldly wanes. 

But by the blaze of our red-glowing grate 
We see beyond the barren line of eaves, 
And mark the flashing of a flicker's wing; 

And violets in the blue flames seem to wait, 
While shining through a mist of emerald leaves 
Beckons and laughs the sweet, fresh face of Spring. 



47 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



THE FLIGHT OF TIME 

The flight of Time will through the cycles wing 
And one age follow on another's path; 
The leaves of May will feel November's wrath 

And January blossom into Spring; 

And side by side we, onward wandering, 
Shall learn the lesson that each season hath, 
The bud and shard, the glow and aftermath, 

The hopes that vanish and the dreams that cling. 

A day is like a swallow's shadow cast 
On sleeping waters ; for an instant there 
Etched by the restless pinion in mid-air, 

Vague and elusive as the fleeting past ; 
So let us cleave to gladness in our day 
While Time, that miser, hoards the years away. 



48 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



LATE VIOLETS 

Fast-hidden in October's grassy swales 

Late violets lay ; we found them, you and I, 
While gusty winds, unbridled, galloped by 

And smoky Indian-summer filled the vales ; 

And when the grass divided in the gales 
They glinted there like bits of Autumn sky, 
Then disappeared, as sylvan fairies shy, 

When clamor rude their close retreat assails. 

Late violets ; blue as deep-sea depths unstirred, 
They nestled there, and heard the pulse of earth 
Reverberate within its hollow girth 

Like to a giant echo, faint and blurred; 
And far beyond the sweep of Winter's wing 
We saw their paler sisters of the Spring. 



49 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



AUTUMN REVERIES 

Along the slopes the fading stubbles show 
And in the woods a purple vapor swims. 
While hickory-nuts from the wind-shaken limbs 

Drop down and nestle in the leaves below; 

The sumach burns with ever-deepening glow 
And shadows lurk about the shallow rims 
Of silent pools; while eastward slowly dims 

The penciled flight of a departing crow. 

And you and I, here on this russet hill 
Drink deep the beaker of Autumnal wine 

Held to our lips , and feel the nameless thrill 
That ebbs and flows in changing shade and shine ; 

The breeze is dead; the trees are rapt and still 
As pilgrims kneeling at a desert shrine. 



50 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



ROSEMARY 

Rosemary for remembrance — may this be 
A leaf where treasured happiness is sealed, 
Unknown to others ; which to us will yield 

(Our memory the magic opening key) 

A fragrant scent of the lost days set free, 
A music to our listening ears revealed ; 
As a rough shell, that sometimes holds concealed 

The mystic murmurous secret of the sea. 

\ 

For something to the written line belongs 

Beyond the word thafs uttered ; through the pen 
This verse, mayhap, shall come to live again 

And take its place among remembered songs ; 

When you and I and all our love and trust 
Are blended into long-forgotten dust. 



51 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



DAWN 

The grey dawn flooded in the lonely room 

That mourned your absence ; on the western wall 
Tl\e sallow shafts of sunbeams struck, to fall 

As sadly as they would across a tomb; 

A shadow in the corner was a plume 

That Night had dropped from off her sable pall; 
A thorny rose stood leafless in the hall, — 

Your going thus had robbed it of its bloom. 

The very pictures were aware of this, 
As silver-stoled and silent slowly came 
The first reluctant messengers of Dawn ; 

Of all you are, and all you are to miss 
Byron seemed speaking from his oval frame, 

And Greek Aspasia whispered, "she is gone ! " 



52 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



NOON 

The book I hold within my idle clasp 

Is closed — and sealed, for aught I care indeed; 

My mind has now no leisure hour to read, 
No tale of love, nor old romance to grasp ; 
My thoughts hang shattered, as a broken hasp, 

And touch of hands, not Fancy 1 s touch I need; 

For since you left my heart begins to bleed 
Where Memory has pierced it like an asp. 

To love you and to lose you for a day, 
A loss irreparable to me it seems — 

The sting of Fate, the worm that never dies. 
I cannot live to have you long away, 
And see, alas! as only in my dreams, 
The light of recognition in your eyes. 



53 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



NIGHT 

What shadows troop across the fading floor, 

What hush floats ever as the shadows turn ! 

Like ashes brooding in a sullen urn, 
Mocking the shades of those who went before, 
My thoughts lie heavy, and I dream no more 

But ever for your absent face I yearn ; 

And grudgingly my sombre lesson learn 
Of waiting for your footstep at the door. 

Mayhap my wish is selfish ; just to see 

Your hand in mine ; to know that you are here 
Close, with the lyrics of your tears or smiles; 
I cannot say what this will mean to me 
Nor all the ways in which I hold you dear, 
Across this void of unrelenting miles. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



ANNIVERSARY. 

This is that day of days when, long ago. 
We stood together by an ancient man 
And heard him drone about the Scriptural plan 

Which plighted men and women here below; 

And westward burned the Autumn afterglow 
While scarlet vines across the branches ran, 
And flying leaves, a russet caravan, 

Fled down the vales in rustling overflow. 

I scarcely recollect the spoken words, 

Nor care I for the ceremony vain 
Which said, forsooth, that God had made us one, 

Since Love had mated us as mate the birds — 
And on the windows was the West's bright stain, 

The parting benediction of the sun. 



55 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



HAPPINESS. 

Not to be happy in our own conceit 

Of faith and truth and well-remembered days 

In breezy woods and empty, pastoral ways, 
Where the brown waves of leaves Autumnal beat; 
But more to wish that other souls may meet 

And find their comrades in this earthly maze; 

Tliat men and women, like to us, will gaze 
Each in each other's eyes and find life sweet. 

When you and I together silent wait 
Not only do these thoughts of Thee and Me 

Knock at our hearts, as at an inner gate, 
But, through the wonder and the mystery, 

Deep in our dreams we pray a kindly fate 
For lovers past and lovers yet to be. 



56 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



IN DAYS TO COME 

In days to come, when we are old and gray, 
Bent with the years and disciplined by Time, 
Trembling and feeble we will scan this rhyme 

Whose light for us has almost dimmed away, 

And haply then remember, if we may, 

Some sweet suggestion of our youth sublime, 
Some keen reminder which like bruised thyme 

Shall bring the memory of our Summer day. 

There is no life but loving; naught but Youth 
To make love perfect ; when the rose-leaves fall 

The perfume withers while the birds are dumb 
And thus, indeed, I could in very truth, 

Pray that we both might early yield this thrall 
And so lose Winter in the days to come. 



57 



SONNETS TO cA WIFE 



HERO-WORSHIP 

To every man some doting woman lends 
A halo of enchantment; in her eyes 
He is most noble, loving, brave and wise ; 

This worship like to incense pure ascends 

And with her dreams in painted glamour blends 
Like rainbow melting in the western skies ; 
His lightest word is something dear to prize. 

His chance caress for sorrow full amends. 

Oh, mystery ! that woman cannot see 

Her own superiority to man, 
Which soars on high, like eagle's wing above — 
Just as it was, has been, will ever be, 

Because ordained by God's primeval plan, — 
Her greater faith, fidelity and love. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



WAITING 

To picture you when far apart from me; 

To guess how you might occupy the day ; 

Whether the moments slowly glide away 
And if the hours or swift or tedious be ; 
And never from this patient vigil free, 

But like a statue in the sculptor's clay 

Musing and brooding, or, as Moslems pray, 
Stretching my hands, through silence, out to thee, 

There is so little time, Love, after all, 
To walk together; such a little while 

Before our lives will melt, as in a breath ; 

How soon, alas, the leaves of April fall! 

How much I miss the joy once of your smile, 
And waiting seems the bitterness of death*. 



59 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



DREAMS 

Not always have we, prudent, sowed the seed 
Of thoughts prosaic as to wisely reap 
The less impassioned memories that keep 

Our lives more commonplace in word and deed ; 

For Fancy sometimes blows upon her reed 
And Romance dimly rises, half-asleep, 
While over heart and brain and spirit sweep 

Faint chords, like wings from mystic cages freed. 

Either a song of gladness or of tears 
In sunshine rippling or on shadow cast, 

Thus to our ears this mocking music seems ; 
Something to listen for through flying years 

Rapt echoes of the future or the past, 

The respite and the recompense of dreams. 



60 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



AFFINITY 

Tne sparks fly always upward, and my soul 
Spreads wings to meet yours, as its one true mate, 
Whether the paths be blossom-crowned or strait, 

Whether in gladness or in bitter dole ; 

No voice but yours can soothe me, or control, 
No words, save yours my ways illuminate ; 
I am content to follow, lead or wait 

My eyes fixed ever on the distant goal. 

Not oak and vine are we, but lovers twain 
Who face the world together, side by side. 
And so shall bide until our latest breath ; 
In storm or shine, in burning sun or rain, 

Through life's long ways in comradeship allied, 
Not to be parted by the hands of death. 



61 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



LAUGHTER 

The touch of mirth still cherish, as is best , 

Laughter, with lips slow-spreading to a smile. 

What were this world without the quip and wile, 
The cap and bells, the old, time-honored jest ? 
Welcome the coming, speed the departing guest ; 

And still with merriment the way beguile. 

A little joy shall last the longest while, 
Be gay, look up, be merry with the rest. 

For mark the limpid quibbles of the streams, 

The joyousness that sunshine scatters far, 

The crooning exultation of the sea ! 

Better be glad with careless John-a-Dreams 

Than linger where the sober sages are 

And lose the wiser sense of jollity. 



62 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



SANCTUARY 

As from the toil and turmoil of the world 
I come to bring good fortune or defeat, 
And once again your loving eyes to meet, 

Then droops the rest, like a lone banner furled 

By idle winds ; for all my thoughts are whirled 
Toward you, like a cloud of swallows fleet; 
And all the cares that follow at my feet 

Like wraiths against the darkness back are hurled. 

Home is where love is, and no doubt can pierce 

That inner space where you and I do dwell, 

Nor cast a lurking shadow on its floor; 

However beats the tide beyond us fierce, 

However prowls, with ululating yell, 

The ever-watchful wolf beside the door. 



63 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



IN THE BEECH WOODS 

Broad screens, which shut the dawnlight from the earth, 
Of emerald leaves dense woven thick across; 
And under foot were strips of velvet moss 

That sloped around the beech-tree's mighty girth. 

No bird-song, breaking into sudden mirth, 
But silence, and a sadness for such loss, 
With here and there a shred of sunlight's gloss 

To lighten up the forest's flowerless dearth. 

So must the Eden garden once have stood 

When Adam and his bride went on their way: 
No birds nor flowers in the pleasant wood 
But sombre aisles and solemn spaces gray. 
Do you remember how we found it there? 
A green cathedral, ghostly-still and bare ! 



64 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



CONTENTMENT 

To glean the fields of life and take the grain 

With thorns or poppies as the gods decree ; 
To lightly jest at Winter's wrath and see 

Flowers in frost upon the window-pane ; 

To build our airy castle-walls in Spain, 
However bare the near surroundings be — 
This is the secret of content ; the key 

Which men have given all the world to gain. 

We find it where the sun and shadows meet 
In sylvan spaces cloistered from the town 
Where vague, yet clear, its presence may 
seen; 
It rustles in the dead leaves at our feet, 
It catches at the ruffle of your gown, 
And beckons on with happy eyes serene. 



65 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



SORROW 

The saving grace of sorrow has been ours, 

So that this present happiness is sweet; 

Yea ! doubly so, since long ago our feet 
Were pierced by thorns and seldom touched by 

flowers ; 
Past sadness with a rarer joy endowers 

These days in which our pulses higher beat ; 

Like blossoms which uplift, the sun to greet, 
After the stress of sudden, chilling showers. 

Fire tempers steel; and thus the test of pain 
Shall make souls steadfast, and the true heart 
strong 
And bring tranquility from stormy years ; 
Life's bitter lessons are not learned in vain 
And rightly runs the burden of the song, 

■ ' They lightest laugh who knew the touch of tears. ' ' 

LofC. 



SONNETS TO <A WIFE 



IN WINTER PA THS 

The tumbled drifts, like fixed and frozen seas, 
Are billowed up around us, all in white, 
The swirling winds on leafless branches smite 

And round about the trunks of naked trees 

Flit restlessly the black-capped chickadees ; 
Shy bits of grey, in brief and silent flight ; 
The woods are blacker than at dead of night 

And under icy shields the waters freeze. 

But yonder was a spray where on a time 
The robin sang; in that lone reach remote 
Wild violets gathered, bluer than the sea ; 
Nor shall this dearth banish the water's rhyme 

The green of the grass, the blue-bird's April note, 
While side by side you wander here with me. 



67 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



STEADFASTNESS 

We will not dread the future nor the past. 

There is enough to live for day by day, 

Time and to spare for either work or play 
And the long slumber coming at the last; 
God and Eternity are much too vast 

To fret us while we linger by the way. 

Sometimes we shall be sad and sometimes gay, 
But heart with heart and hand in hand stand fast. 

Let others seek the solace of the shrine 
Under the gilded and inscripted dome 

That shuts from sight the far blue heavens above ; 
For us, the essence of the true divine, 

The human joys that touch and sweeten home — 
And that denied the angels — which is Love. 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



PICTURES 

There have been pictures that were reckoned fair 
In ancient times by cunning painters wrought, 
And far across the tides of ocean brought 

To hang at last, like jewels old and rare, 

In stately halls; but none that would compare 
To some one woman, by the Graces taught, 
With roses at her bosom, perfume-fraught, 

And motes of golden sunlight in her hair. 

Time picks the crumbling canvas into shreds 
Till, dust at length, it sinks in the abyss, 
And with the winds in errant circle blows; 
But ere Fate comes to snip the tightened threads 
There is no picture which is like to this — 
The one fair woman — at her breast a rose.. 



69 



SONNETS TO c4 WIFE 



SHADOWS 

If we are naught but shadows, as they say, 
Seen briefly as a sunset while we pass, 
If life is tinkling cymbals — sounding brass — 

And love a dream that quickly fades away — 

Fate may not rob us ; we have had our day ; 

Have heard the music and have drained our glass ; 
And if we are to perish as the grass, 

Death cannot quench the spark which lit our clay. 

For Love beyond all else is vestal flame 
That burns forever, constant as is Time, 
Steadfast and bright as is the Northern star; 
And when, like mist, we vanish as we came, 
Mayhap our passion shall imbue this rlxyme 
With life for others, shadows though we are. 



&COTE 




8KPTE 

The twentieth sonnet of the sequence as it 
appears in this volume is an emendation by the 
author. As the sonnets appeared serially in the 
St. I^ouis Mirror, the twentieth was as follows: 

AT THE WINDOW 

A measure of slow musing and a dream 

Of other days that to her heart has sped; 
A yard below where grasses thickly spread 

I^ie out like velvet in the sunlight's gleam; 

Blue-dappled skies with clouds as wan as cream, 
And in the streets, a wandering, noisy thread 
Of wheels and voices, down and outward led, 

That ripples past the window in a stream. 

But now a footstep echoes up the street 

And drops the thimble from her finger there, 

The quickened pulses of the day swift beat 
And sunshine nestles in her tawny hair; 

He looks above, as hoping not in vain — 

Her face appears, a flower at the pane. 



Issued by 

The Mirror Press 

Saint Louis 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




012 074 848 8 



